From the air, the area north of Grand Isle,
Louisiana, much of it around Barataria Bay, looks like scorched earth.
This area has been and is heavily afflicted by BP's oil. The so-called
cleanup efforts, including laying out booms to supposedly prevent oil
from destroying more marsh and killing more wildlife, are a farce.

Opaque, multi-color sheen stains much of the bay and
is visible in countless inlets that snake their way into the marsh. The
contrast between the green marsh area yet to be soiled and the marsh
already blackened by the oil and the sheen covered Gulf water is stark.
The afflicted water appears as a lifeless, dull, silvery fluid.

Photo by Erika
Blumenfeld 2010

Photo by Erika
Blumenfeld 2010

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While BP has put forth great effort in securing tax benefits
acquired from leasing rigs like the sunken Deepwater Horizon, it has
also saved money by choosing not to pursue better cleanup methods and
technologies. We live in a corporate world where profit is god. Profit
rules. Showing a profit on the next quarterly earnings statement is
everything. This is how a multi-billion dollar oil giant like BP (yes,
we can include the others as well - Exxon/Mobile, ConocoPhillips, Royal
Dutch Shell, Chevron, Total S.A.) spends vast troughs of money on
developing the latest oil exploration and drilling technologies. But
when it comes to cleaning up their toxic mess when disaster strikes,
every expense is spared.

Many people across varying industries working in the
so-called cleanup effort understand that laying out boom to contain oil
is largely an act designed primarily to impress politicians and
uninformed media. The so-called cleanup work BP is engaged in on the
soiled Gulf Coast has been shoddy,
at best, including allegations
that BP has been dumping sand atop oil on beaches to cover it up.
Controlled oil burns in the Gulf are also, needless to say, coming under
criticism
for their devastating impact on the environment, in addition to
negatively impacting the human health of residents on Louisiana's coast.

But this should not come as a surprise, given that
one of the first things BP did in the immediate aftermath of the
Deepwater Horizon disaster was to launch a campaign to strengthen its legal
defense with the best attorneys money can buy, rein in legal teams
and buy up experts who might otherwise work for plaintiffs in cases
against the oil giant.

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The more we see of this so-called cleanup and
containment plan of BP's, the more it appears to be the second largest
contributing factor in destroying the ecology and culture of the Gulf
region, behind, of course, BP's oil volcano at the floor of the Gulf.

From the air, we see the same boom catastrophe as we
did from our recent boat trip into the marsh. In some areas, boom does
little more than outline the dead areas of the marsh, having gathered
into piles and left to soak oil directly onto the land.

Photo by Erika
Blumenfeld 2010

Time after time, we fly over small marsh islands,
their shores scorched by oil, the marsh grass immediately dying,
surrounded by boom.

Photo by Erika
Blumenfeld 2010

Sheen covers the water, held against the islands by
the booming.

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Photo by Erika
Blumenfeld 2010

"It's as though the booms do nothing more than hold
oil in the marsh, rather than keeping it out," I comment into my
headphones as we fly low, just above the soiled islands. Charlie, our
pilot, nods.

Erika hangs out her open window, taking hundreds of
photos of the destruction caused by BP's criminal negligence.

DAHR JAMAIL He is author of the book Beyond the Green Zone: Dispatches from an Unembedded Journalist in Occupied Iraq. Jamail's work has been featured on National Public Radio, the Guardian, The Nation, and The Progressive. He has received many (more...)